THE ROCKIES PAINTED BY DAVID HOCKNEY

DAVID HOCKNEY (bn. 1937) 

Mount Elbert (4, 401 m -14, 440 ft) 

Unites States of America (Colorado)

 In  Rocky mountains and Tired Indians, oil on canvas,  1965, National Galleries Scotland 

The mountains 

Mount Elbert  (4, 401 m -14, 440 ft) in Colorado is the highest point of the Rocky Mountains commonly known as the Rockies,  a major mountain range in western North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch more than 3,000 miles (4,800 km) from the northernmost part of British Columbia, in western Canada, to New Mexico, in the Southwestern United States. Within the North American Cordillera, the Rockies are somewhat distinct from the Pacific Coast Ranges and the Cascade Range and Sierra Nevada, which all lie further to the west.

The Rocky Mountains were initially formed from 80 million to 55 million years ago during the Laramide orogeny, in which a number of plates began to slide underneath the North American plate. The angle of subduction was shallow, resulting in a broad belt of mountains running down western North America. Since then, further tectonic activity and erosion by glaciers have sculpted the Rockies into dramatic peaks and valleys. At the end of the last ice age, humans started to inhabit the mountain range. After Europeans, such as Sir Alexander Mackenzie, and Americans, such as the Lewis and Clark expedition, started to explore the range, minerals and furs drove the initial economic exploitation of the mountains, although the range itself never became densely populated.

Much of the mountain range is protected by public parks and forest lands and is a popular tourist destination, especially for hiking, camping, mountaineering, fishing, hunting, mountain biking, skiing, and snowboarding.

The painter 

David Hockney (born 9 July 1937) is an English painter, draughtsman, printmaker, stage designer and photographer. An important contributor to the pop art movement of the 1960s, he is considered one of the most influential British artists of the 20th century.

At the Royal College of Art, Hockney featured in the exhibition Young Contemporaries—alongside Peter Blake—that announced the arrival of British Pop art. He was associated with the movement, but his early works display expressionist elements, similar to some works by Francis Bacon. When the RCA said it would not let him graduate in 1962, Hockney drew the sketch The Diploma in protest. He had refused to write an essay required for the final examination, saying he should be assessed solely on his artworks. Recognising his talent and growing reputation, the RCA changed its regulations and awarded the diploma. After leaving the RCA, he taught at Maidstone College of Art for a short time.  A visit to California, where he subsequently lived for many years, inspired him to make a series of paintings of swimming pools in the comparatively new acrylic medium rendered in a highly realistic style using vibrant colours. The artist moved to Los Angeles in 1964, returned to London in 1968, and from 1973 to 1975 lived in Paris.

Hockney has a home and studio in Kensington, London and two residences in California, where he has lived on and off for over 30 years: one in Nichols Canyon, Los Angeles, and an office and archives on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood, California. 

THE MONT BLANC BY FELIX VALOTTON

FELIX VALOTTON  (1865-1925)

The Mont Blanc (4,808.13 m - 15,776.7 ft)

  France - Italy  border

1. In Mont Blanc, 1892, woodcut print,   

2. In  Le Mont Blanc, 1892, woodcut print,  Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam

About the works

Those very famous woodcuts and  illustrations in black and white brings to the young Swiss painter Felix Valotton an international fame. In 1891, he literally renewed the art of xylography following the publication of an article by Albert Aurier, "Le Symbolisme en peinture", calling for an "idealistic" and decorative art, from which would be banished "Concrete truth, illusionism, trompe-l'oeil". The engravings that Valotton show in 1892 made such a sensation that he was invited to take part in various shows (Salon des artistes français, Salon des indépendants, Salon d'automne).

In the begining of 1892 Valotton engraved on wood a series of mountains from the French and Swiss Alps, which he exhibited at the first Salon de la Rose-Croix in 1892. They were immediately noticed by the Nabis, a group he rallied from 1893 to 1903 before making a long friendship with Édouard Vuillard.

The mountain 

Mont Blanc (in French) or Monte Bianco (in Italian), both meaning "White Mountain", is the highest mountain in the Alps and the highest in Europe after the Caucasus peaks. It rises 4,808.73 m (15,777 ft) above sea level and is ranked 11th in the world in topographic prominence.  The Mont Blanc is one of the Seven Summit, which includes the highest mountains of each of the seven continents. Summiting all of them is regarded as a mountaineering challenge, first achieved on April 30, 1985 by Richard Bass.  The 7 highest summit, (which are obviously 8 with 2 in Europe !) are :  

Mount Everest (8,848m), Aconcagua (6,961m), Mt Denali or Mc Kinley (6,194m),  Kilimandjaro (5,895m), Mt Elbrus (5,642m), Mount Vinson (4,892m) and Mount Kosciuszko  (2,228m) in Australia.

The mountain lies in a range called the Graian Alps, between the regions of Aosta Valley, Italy, and Savoie and Haute-Savoie, France. The location of the summit is on the watershed line between the valleys of Ferret and Veny in Italy and the valleys of Montjoie, and Arve in France. The Mont Blanc massif is popular for mountaineering, hiking, skiing, and snowboarding.

The three towns and their communes which surround Mont Blanc are Courmayeur in Aosta Valley, Italy, and Saint-Gervais-les-Bains and Chamonix in Haute-Savoie, France.  A cable car ascends and crosses the mountain range from Courmayeur to Chamonix, through the Col du Géant. Constructed beginning in 1957 and completed in 1965, the 11.6 km (7¼ mi) Mont Blanc Tunnel runs beneath the mountain between these two countries and is one of the major trans-Alpine transport routes.

Since the French Revolution, the issue of the ownership of the summit has been debated. 

From 1416 to 1792, the entire mountain was within the Duchy of Savoy. In 1723 the Duke of Savoy, Victor Amadeus II, acquired the Kingdom of Sardinia. The resulting state of Sardinia was to become preeminent in the Italian unification.[ In September 1792, the French revolutionary Army of the Alps under Anne-Pierre de Montesquiou-Fézensac seized Savoy without much resistance and created a department of the Mont-Blanc. In a treaty of 15 May 1796, Victor Amadeus III of Sardinia was forced to cede Savoy and Nice to France. In article 4 of this treaty it says: "The border between the Sardinian kingdom and the departments of the French Republic will be established on a line determined by the most advanced points on the Piedmont side, of the summits, peaks of mountains and other locations subsequently mentioned, as well as the intermediary peaks, knowing: starting from the point where the borders of Faucigny, the Duchy of Aoust and the Valais, to the extremity of the glaciers or Monts-Maudits: first the peaks or plateaus of the Alps, to the rising edge of the Col-Mayor". This act further states that the border should be visible from the town of Chamonix and Courmayeur. However, neither the peak of the Mont Blanc is visible from Courmayeur nor the peak of the Mont Blanc de Courmayeur is visible from Chamonix because part of the mountains lower down obscure them. A Sardinian Atlas map of 1869 showing the summit lying two thirds in Italy and one third in France.

After the Napoleonic Wars, the Congress of Vienna restored the King of Sardinia in Savoy, Nice and Piedmont, his traditional territories, overruling the 1796 Treaty of Paris. Forty-five years later, after the Second Italian War of Independence, it was replaced by a new legal act. This act was signed in Turin on 24 March 1860 by Napoleon III and Victor Emmanuel II of Savoy, and deals with the annexation of Savoy (following the French neutrality for the plebiscites held in Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna to join the Kingdom of Sardinia, against the Pope's will). A demarcation agreement, signed on 7 March 1861, defines the new border. With the formation of Italy, for the first time Mont Blanc is located on the border of France and Italy.

The 1860 act and attached maps are still legally valid for both the French and Italian governments. One of the prints from the 1823 Sarde Atlas  positions the border exactly on the summit edge of the mountain (and measures it to be 4,804 m (15,761 ft) high). The convention of 7 March 1861 recognises this through an attached map, taking into consideration the limits of the massif, and drawing the border on the icecap of Mont Blanc, making it both French and Italian.Watershed analysis of modern topographic mapping not only places the main summit on the border, but also suggests that the border should follow a line northwards from the main summit towards Mont Maudit, leaving the southeast ridge to Mont Blanc de Courmayeur wholly within Italy.

Although the Franco-Italian border was redefined in both 1947 and 1963, the commission made up of both Italians and French ignored the Mont Blanc issue. In the early 21st century, administration of the mountain is shared between the Italian town of Courmayeur and the French town of Saint-Gervais-les-Bains, although the larger part of the mountain lies within the commune of the latter.

The painter 
Félix Edouard Vallotton was a Swiss/French painter and printmaker associated (from 1892) with Les Nabis, a group of young artists that included Pierre Bonnard, Ker-Xavier Roussel, Maurice Denis, and Edouard Vuillard, with whom Vallotton was to form a lifelong friendship. During the 1890s, when Vallotton was closely allied with the avant-garde, his paintings reflected the style of his woodcuts, with flat areas of color, hard edges, and simplification of detail. His subjects included genre scenes, portraits and nudes. Examples of his Nabi style are the deliberately awkward Bathers on a Summer Evening (1892–93), now in the Kunsthaus Zurich, and the symbolist Moonlight (1895), in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris.
In 1899 Vallotton married Gabrielle Rodrigues-Henriques, a wealthy young widow with three children, and in 1900 he attained French citizenship. Around 1899, his printmaking activity diminished as he concentrated on painting, developing a sober, often bitter realism independently of the artistic mainstream. His Portrait of Gertrude Stein (1907) was painted as an apparent response to Picasso's portrait of the previous year, and in The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas Stein described the very methodical way in which Vallotton painted it, working from top to bottom as if lowering a curtain across the canvas.
Vallotton's paintings of the post-Nabi period found admirers, and were generally respected for their truthfulness and their technical qualities, but the severity of his style was frequently criticized. Typical is the reaction of the critic who, writing in the March 23, 1910 issue of Neue Zurcher Zeitung, complained that Vallotton "paints like a policeman, like someone whose job it is to catch forms and colors. Everything creaks with an intolerable dryness ... the colors lack all joyfulness."
In its uncompromising character his art prefigured the New Objectivity that flourished in Germany during the 1920s, and has a further parallel in the work of Edward Hopper.
Vallotton responded in 1914 to the coming of the First World War by volunteering for the French army, but he was rejected because of his age.  In 1915–16 he returned to the medium of woodcut for the first time since 1901 to express his feelings for his adopted country in the series, This is War, his last prints. He subsequently spent three weeks on a tour of the Champagne front in 1917, on a commission from the Ministry of Fine Arts. The sketches he produced became the basis for a group of paintings, The Church of Souain in Silhouette among them, in which he recorded with cool detachment the ruined landscape.  In his last years Félix Vallotton concentrated especially on still lifes and on "composite landscapes", landscapes composed in the studio from memory and imagination. Always a prolific artist, by the end of his life he had completed over 1700 paintings and about 200 prints, in addition to hundreds of drawings and several sculptures.  He died on the day after his 60th birthday, following cancer surgery in Paris in 1925.

_______________________________
2017 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

HAUBERG MOUNTAINS IN VINTAGE STAMP 1995

VINTAGE STAMPS

 Hauberg Mountains (no elevation data) 

 Antarctica

 In Hauberg Mountains, British Antarctic Territory 1995, 
issued in the series "Geological Formations"
 Courtesy mountainstamp.com

The mountain 

The Hauberg Mountains (75°52′S 069°15′W - no elevation data) are a group of mountains of about 56 kilometres (35 mi) extent, located 19 kilometres (12 mi) north of Cape Zumberge and 48 kilometres (30 mi) south of the Sweeney Mountains in Palmer Land, Antarctica.

Discovered by the Ronne Antarctic Research Expedition (RARE), 1947–48, led by Finn Ronne, and named by him for John Hauberg, of Rock Island, Illinois, a contributor to the expedition.

MITRE PEAK / RAHOTU BY JOHN BARR CLARK HOYTE

 JOHN BARR CLARK HOYTE (1835-1913)

 Mitre Peak / Rahotu  (1,683m -  5,522 ft) 

New Zealand (South Island)

1.  In Mitre Peak, 1870 , watercolour, 1870  

2.  In Mitre Peak from Milford Sound, watercolour 1870

About the works 

During his years in New Zealand, from 1860 to 1879, John Barr Clark Hoyte travelled around the country searching for dramatic landscapes to paint.
The watercolours of Mitre Peak are thought to date from the 1870s.

The mountain 

Mitre Peak/ Rahotu  (1,683m -  5,522 ft) is an iconic mountain in the South Island of New Zealand, located on the shore of Milford Sound. It is one of the most photographed peaks in the country. The distinctive shape of the peak in southern New Zealand gives the mountain its name, after the mitre headwear of Christian bishops. It was named by Captain John Lort Stokes of the HMS Acheron. 

Part of the reason for its iconic status is its location. Close to the shore of Milford Sound, in the Fiordland National Park in the southwestern South Island, it is a stunning sight.  The mountain rises near vertically from the water of Milford Sound, which technically is a fjord.

The peak is actually a closely grouped set of five peaks, with Mitre Peak not even the tallest one, however from most easily accessible viewpoints, Mitre Peak appears as a single point.

 Milford Sound is part of Te Wahipounamu, a World Heritage Site as declared by UNESCO.

The only road access to Milford Sound is via State Highway 94, in itself one of the most scenic roads in New Zealand.

Climbing

Mitre Peak is difficult to climb and not many people do so.  The first attempt was made in 1883, but was aborted due to bad weather. The next attempt was on 13 March 1911 by JR Dennistoun from Peel Forest. People did not believe Dennistoun, who claimed to have built a cairn on the peak to which he had fixed his handkerchief. Those facts were confirmed by the next successful climbers in 1914. There are six routes up to Mitre Peak, and most climbers start by getting a boat to Sinbad Bay.

The Painter 

John Barr Clark Hoyte was born in England, probably in London,  the son of Samuel Hoyte, a landowner. His mother's name is not known, nor are any details of his childhood. From 1856 to 1859 he was employed as a planter in Demerara, Guyana, after which he returned to England. On 1860, at Leamington, Warwickshire, he married Rose Esther Elizabeth Parsons, daughter of an iron merchant. Within three months they sailed on the Egmont for Auckland, New Zealand, where they were to live for 16 years. Three daughters were born in Auckland, and the couple may also have had a son. A brother of John Hoyte emigrated to New Zealand, possibly in the 1870s.
Nothing is known of Hoyte's education and artistic training and we are reduced to the obvious deduction that he was heir to the English tradition of topographic draughtsmanship and watercolour painting. Firm drawing underlies his landscapes, making it appropriate to group him with colonial surveyor–architect artists such as Edward Ashworth, Edmund Norman and George O'Brien.
During his years in New Zealand John Hoyte travelled assiduously in search of new scenes to exploit. In January 1866 he exhibited views from Whangarei, Coromandel, Auckland, Waikato, the Wellington region and Nelson, although some of these pictures were not painted from the subject. In the 1870s he travelled each summer, progressively adding the thermal region, Taranaki, Nelson, Christchurch, Arthur's Pass, Banks Peninsula and Otago to his repertoire between 1872 and 1876.
His pictorial exploration of the colony's principal dramatic landscapes was completed when he took a cruise circumnavigating the South Island in early 1877, exploring the coast of Fiordland with particular attention. New Zealand subjects would continue to inspire his production long after he had settled in Australia, where they shared his attention with coastal and mountain views drawn chiefly from the neighbourhood of Sydney.
The success of the art unions of his work shows that the subjects he painted were in harmony with public taste. Despite the exceptional landscapes which appear so frequently in his production – geysers, the Pink and White Terraces, fiords, mountains and lakes – it appears that his preference was for a more gentle, picturesque mode of landscape art rather than the heightened tensions of the sublime. The Otago Guardian in 1876 described 'the aspect of repose which usually characterises Mr Hoyte's illustrations of native landscapes'. A comparison of Fiordland subjects painted by Hoyte and John Gully shows that Hoyte eschewed the manipulation of the viewer's emotions which the latter exploited so regularly. Even in his pastoral subjects Gully could be relied on to introduce an epic element which Hoyte usually avoided. Despite his apparent commercial success, however, Hoyte's standing, like that of George O'Brien, waned in the 1870s: a decade which marked a major shift in New Zealand colonial taste as the Turnerian Romantics such as Gully, J. C. Richmond and W. M. Hodgkins moved into greater prominence. They and their style were to dominate the following decades.

MOUNT VESUVIUS PAINTED BY J.M.W. TURNER

J.M.W. TURNER (1775-1851) 
Mount Vesuvius (1, 281m - 4,203 ft current)

Italy

 In Mount Vesuvius in eruption,1817, oil on canvas, Yale Center for British Art, USA.

The mountain 

Mount Vesuvius (1,281 meters- 4,203 ft current) is one of those legendary and mythic mountains  the Earth paid regularly tribute. Monte Vesuvio in Italian modern langage or Mons Vesuvius in antique Latin langage is a stratovolcano in the Gulf of Naples (Italy) about 9 km (5.6 mi) east of Naples and a short distance from the shore. 
It is one of several volcanoes which form the Campanian volcanic arc. Vesuvius consists of a large cone partially encircled by the steep rim of a summit caldera caused by the collapse of an earlier and originally much higher structure.
Mount Vesuvius is best known for its eruption in AD 79 that led to the burying and destruction of the Roman antique cities of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and several other settlements. That eruption ejected a cloud of stones, ash, and fumes to a height of 33 km (20.5 mi), spewing molten rock and pulverized pumice at the rate of 1.5 million tons per second, ultimately releasing a hundred thousand times the thermal energy released by the Hiroshima bombing. At least 1,000 people died in the eruption. The only surviving eyewitness account of the event consists of two letters by Pliny the Younger to the historian Tacitus.
Vesuvius has erupted many times since and is the only volcano on the European mainland to have erupted within the last hundred years. Nowadays, it is regarded as one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world because of the population of 3,000,000 people living nearby and its tendency towards explosive eruptions (said Plinian eruptions). It is the most densely populated volcanic region in the world.
Vesuvius was formed as a result of the collision of two tectonic plates, the African and the Eurasian. The former was subducted beneath the latter, deeper into the earth. As the water-saturated sediments of the oceanic African plate were pushed to hotter depths in the earth, the water boiled off and caused the melting point of the upper mantle to drop enough to create partial melting of the rocks. Because magma is less dense than the solid rock around it, it was pushed upward. Finding a weak place at the Earth's surface it broke through, producing the volcano.
he area around Vesuvius was officially declared a national park on June 5, 1995. The summit of Vesuvius is open to visitors and there is a small network of paths around the mountain that are maintained by the park authorities on weekends.
There is access by road to within 200 metres (660 ft) of the summit (measured vertically), but thereafter access is on foot only. There is a spiral walkway around the mountain from the road to the crater.
The first funicular cable car on Mount Vesuvius opened in 1880. It was later destroyed by the 1944 eruption. "Funiculì, Funiculà", a famous Neapolitan song with lyrics by journalist Peppino Turco set to music by composer Luigi Denza, commemorates its opening. 

The painter 

The english painter Joseph Mallord William Turner was considered a controversial figure in his day, but is now regarded as the artist who elevated landscape painting to an eminence in the history of painting. Although renowned for his oil paintings, Turner is also one of the greatest masters of British watercolour landscape painting. He is commonly known as "the painter of light" and his work is regarded as a Romantic preface to Impressionism.

In his thirties, Turner travelled widely in Europe, starting with France and Switzerland in 1802 and studying in the Louvre in Paris in the same year. He made many visits to Venice.   Turner's talent was recognized early in his life. Financial independence allowed Turner to innovate freely; his mature work is characterized by a chromatic palette and broadly applied atmospheric washes of paint. According to David Piper's The Illustrated History of Art, his later pictures were called "fantastic puzzles." Turner was recognized as an artistic genius: influential English art critic John Ruskin described him as the artist who could most "stirringly and truthfully measure the moods of Nature."

Turner's major venture into printmaking was the Liber Studiorum (Book of Studies), seventy prints that he worked on from 1806 to 1819. The Liber Studiorum was an expression of his intentions for landscape art. The idea was loosely based on Claude Lorrain's Liber Veritatis (Book of Truth), where Lorrain  had recorded his completed paintings; a series of print copies of these drawings, by then at Devonshire House, had been a huge publishing success. Turner's plates were meant to be widely disseminated, and categorized the genre into six types: Marine, Mountainous, Pastoral, Historical, Architectural, and Elevated or Epic Pastoral.  His printmaking was a major part of his output, and a museum is devoted to it, the Turner Museum in Sarasota, Florida, founded in 1974 by Douglas Montrose-Graem to house his collection of Turner prints.

Turner placed human beings in many of his paintings to indicate his affection for humanity on the one hand (note the frequent scenes of people drinking or working or walking in the foreground), but its vulnerability and vulgarity amid the 'sublime' nature of the world on the other. 'Sublime' here means awe-inspiring, savage grandeur, a natural world unmastered by man, evidence of the power of God – a theme that romanticist artists and poets were exploring in this period. Although these late paintings appear to be 'impressionistic' and therefore a forerunner of the French school, Turner was striving for expression of spirituality in the world, rather than responding primarily to optical phenomena.

Turner used pigments like carmine in his paintings, knowing that they were not long-lasting, despite the advice of contemporary experts to use more durable pigments. As a result, many of his colours have now faded greatly. 

John Ruskin says in his "Notes" on Turner in March 1878 : "His true master was Dr Monro; to the practical teaching of that first patron and the wise simplicity of method of watercolour study, in which he was disciplined by him and companioned by Girtin, the healthy and constant development of the greater power is primarily to be attributed; the greatness of the power itself, it is impossible to over-estimate. "

SAVOIA PEAK / MOUNT STANLEY PHOTOGRAPHED BY VITTORIO SELLA

  

VITTORIO SELLA (1859-1943)

Mont Stanley / Savoia Peak (4,977 m - 16, 330 ft)

Congo - Uganda border 

 1. In Savoia peak taken from Alexandra Peak with Mt Luigi di Savoia in the background, 1906 

2. In Savoia peak in the distance with Senecio forest, 1906, The Georgian Museum of Photography

The mountain 

Mount Stanley  (5,109 m -16,762 ft) is located in the Rwenzori range and is the highest mountain of both the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda, and the third highest in Africa, after Mount Kilimanjaro (5,895 m -19,340ft) and Mount Kenya (5,199 m - 17,057ft). The peak and several other surrounding peaks are high enough to support glaciers. Mount Stanley is named for the journalist and explorer, Sir Henry Morton Stanley. It is part of the Rwenzori Mountains National Park, a UNESCO world Heritage Site. 

Mt. Stanley consists of two twin summits and several lower peaks which are : 

Margherita Peak (5,109m - 16,763ft), Alexandra Peak (5,091m - 16,703ft), Albert Peak (5,087m - 16,690ft), Savoia Peak (4,977m - 16,330ft), Ellena Peak (4,968m -16,300ft), Elizabeth Peak (4,929m - 16,170 ft), Phillip Peak (4,920m - 16,140ft), Moebius Peak (4,916m - 16,130 ft) and Great Tooth (4,603m - 15,100ft).

Mt. Stanley was first climbed in 1906 by the Prince Luigi Amedeo di Savoia , Duke of the Abruzzi, (1873-1933),  J. Petigax, C. Ollier, and J. Brocherel. He is known as well for his Arctic explorations and for his mountaineering expeditions, particularly to Mount Saint Elias (Alaska–Yukon) and K2 (Pakistan–China). Margherita Peak is named after Queen Margherita of Italy the prince's cousin.

The Rwenzori Mountains National Park is considered a model for integration of cultural values into the Protected Area Management framework as an innovative approach to resource management, the first of its kind in Africa.  As a result the local communities have embraced collaborative resource management initiatives. Given its significance as one of the biodiversity hotspots in the Albertine Rift, various local and international NGOs have supported the management and conservation of the property. A General Management Plan guides management operations on-site. Key challenges to address include illegal felling of trees, snow recession due to global warming, human population pressure adjacent to the property and management of waste generated through tourism operations. UWA is addressing the above threats through resource protection, community conservation education, research and ranger-based monitoring, ecotourism and transboundary initiatives with the DRC. The long-term maintenance of the integrity of the property will be achieved through sustainable financing, ecological monitoring, continued collaboration with key stakeholders and regional cooperation.

The artist
Vittorio Sella is a mountain italian climber and photographer who took his passion for mountains from his uncle, Quintino Sella, founder of the Italian Alpine Club.  He accomplished many remarkable climbs in the Alps, the first wintering in the Matterhorn and Mount Rose (1882) and the first winter crossing of Mont Blanc (1888).
He took part in various expeditions outside Italy:
- Three in the Caucasus in 1889, 1890 and 1896 where a summit still bears his name;
- The ascent of Mount Saint Elias in Alaska in 1897;
- Sikkim and Nepal in 1899;
- Possibly climb Mount Stanley in Uganda in 1906 during an expedition to the Rwenzori;
- Recognition at  K2   in 1909;
- In Morocco in 1925.
During expeditions in Alaska, Uganda and Karakoram (K2), he accompanied the Duke of Abruzzi, Prince Luigi Amedeo di Savoia.
Sella continues the practice of climbing into his old age, completing his final attempt in the Matterhorn at the age of 76; a climb he had to interrupt the rise following an accident in which one of his guides injured. He died in his hometown during World War II.  His photographic collection is now managed by the Sella Foundation.
His photos mountain are still  considered today to be among the finest ever made.
Jim Curran believes that "Sella remains probably the greatest photographer of the mountain.  His name is synonymous with technical perfection and aesthetic refinement. "
The quality of the pictures of Vittorio Sella is partly explained by the use of a view camera 30 × 40 cm, despite the difficulty of the transportation of such a device, both heavy and fragile in places inaccessible; to be able to transport it safely, he had to make special pieces that can be stored in saddle bags.  His photographs have been widely distributed, either through the press or in the galleries, and were unanimously celebrated; Ansel Adams, who was able to admire thirty-one in an exhibition that was organized at Sella American Sierra Club, said they inspired him "a religious kind of sense of wonder."  Many of his pictures were taken in the mountains for the very first time in the History, which give them a much artistic, historical  but also scientific value ; for example, one could measure the decline in the Rwenzori glaciers in Central Africa.

MOUNT BRAZEAU BY ARTHUR. P. COLEMAN

ARTHUR P. COLEMAN (1852-1939)

Mount Brazeau (3, 500 m - 11, 483 ft) 

Canada (Alberta) 

 In The Brazeau from camp 17, 1892 watercolor 

The mountain 

Mount Brazeau  (3, 470m - 11, 380ft)  is a mountain in  Canada (Alberta),  located in the upper Coronet Creek Valley of Jasper National Park. It stands west of the Coronet Glacier and south of Maligne Lake. The mountain was named in 1902 by Arthur P. Coleman (who painted the mountain as well) after Joseph Edward Brazeau, who had provided his translation skills to the Palliser Expedition. The name Brazeau was originally applied to the Brazeau River by Sir James Hector ( the most important members of the Palliser Expedition, becoming the first to travel through much of the Canadian Rockies.) 

Mount Brazeau is an impressive mountain with several striking and formidable faces falling down to Maligne Lake and Coronet Creek in southern Jasper National Park. The West Face is massive and near vertical, rising nearly 1,000 metres (3,280 ft.) from Coronet Creek to the summit plateau, which is draped in the glacial mass of the Brazeau Icefield. The south and southwest slopes, topped with the Brazeau Icefield, are low angle and gentle, but are riddled with a minefield of hidden crevasses. 

Mount Brazeau is high on the list of Canadian Rockies 11,000 footers, depending on your perspective, either the thirteenth, seventeenth or twenty first highest mountain in the Canadian Rockies; 21 th on the generally accepted list of 54 summits. 

Jasper National Park  (11,228 square kilometres -4,335 square miles) is the largest of Canada's Rocky Mountain Parks and part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site. 

The painter 
Arthur Philemon Coleman was a Canadian a geologist, professor, minerals prospector, artist, Rockies explorer, backwoods canoeist, world traveller, scientist, popular lecturer, museum administrator, memoirist and...  one of Canada’s most beloved scientist.
Arthur Coleman is a fine example of that rare bird, a polished amateur artist whose drawings and paintings stand comfortably beside those of many professionals. He was active during the time when sketching and painting was ceding to photography the task of recording the visible world. Although he was also a photographer, painting was, for him, both a poetic and a descriptive pursuit, a way of wrapping an artistic expression around a phenomenon he was interested in or moved by. Thus motivated, Coleman's paintings give much joy and command a good deal of respect. The more surprising, perhaps given that he used to introduced himself more as a geologist than a painter.
Coleman travelled throughout the United States for professional conferences as well as geological field work.  He visited many of the major American mountain ranges including: the American Cordillera Mountains (Washington, Oregon and California); the Sierra Nevada Mountains (California and Nevada); Yellowstone National Park (Wyoming, Montana and Idaho); and the Appalachian Mountains (eastern United States). Pleistocene glaciation had extended in Northern Europe as far south as Berlin and London and covered an area of two million square miles. Coleman also visited such countries as India, Australia, Brazil, Argentina, Scandinavia, Bolivia, New Zealand, South Africa and Uruguay. In his final years he made two expeditions to the Andes in Colombia, to mountains in Southern Mexico and to two mountains in Central America.  He achieved the first ascent of Castle Mountain in 1884, and in 1907, he was the first white man to attempt to climb Mount Robson. He made a total of eight exploratory trips to the Canadian Rockies, wholly four of them looking for the mythical giants of Hooker and Brown.
From 1901 to 1922, he was a Professor of Geology at the University of Toronto and was Dean of the Faculty of Arts from 1919 to 1922. From 1931 to 1934, he was a geologist with the Department of Mines of the Government of Ontario. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1900 and was its President in 1921. In 1929, he was appointed Honorary Vice-President of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society.
 "Mount Coleman" and "Coleman Glacier" in Banff National Park is named in his honor.  He was awarded the Penrose Medal in 1936.
He planned to climb "hi" mountain, "Mount Coleman"'in the Albertan Rockies, and had also prepared a trip to British Guiana, but death intervened.
He was author of:
- Reports on the Economic Geology of Ontario (1903)
- Lake Ojibway; Last of the Great Glacial Lakes (1909)
- The Canadian Rockies: New and Old Trails (1911)
- Ice Ages, Recent and Ancient (1926), and was co-author of Elementary Geology (1922).
- The Last Million Years (1941) edited by George F. Kay

PARNASSUS PAINTED BY CARL ROTTMANN

CARL ROTTMANN (1797-1850),

Parnassus (2, 457m - 8,061ft)

Greece

In Sikyon mit Parnass, 1839, oil on canvas, Neue Pinakothek Munchen

The mountain 

Parnassus  or Mount Parnassus (2, 457m - 8,061ft), in greek Parnassos (Παρνασσός) which means "the mountain of the house of the god", is a mountain of limestone in central Greece that towers above Delphi, north of the Gulf of Corinth.  According to Greek mythology, this mountain was sacred to Dionysus and the Dionysian mysteries; it was also sacred to Apollo and the Corycian nymphs, and it was the home of the Muses. The mountain was also favored by the Dorians.  Parnassus is one of the largest mountainous regions of Mainland Greece and one of the highest Greek mountains. It spreads over three municipalities, namely of Boeotia, Phthiotis and Phocis, where its largest part lies. Its highest peak is Liakouras. 

This relation of the mountain to the Muses offered an instigation to its more recent "mystification", with the poetic-artistic trend of the 19th century called "Parnassism". The Parnassic movement was established in France in the decade 1866–1876 as a reaction to Romanticism with a return to some classicistic elements and belief in the doctrine "Art for the Art", first expressed by the poet Theophile Gautier. The periodical Modern Parnassus issued for the first time by Catul Mendes and Xavier Ricard contained direct references to Mount.Parnassus and its mythological feature as habitation of the Muses. The Parnassists, who did not exceed a group of twenty poets, exercised a relatively strong influence on the cultural life of Paris, particularly due to their tenacity on perfection of rhyme and vocabulary. Parnassism influenced several French poets, such as Baudelaire, but it also exercised an influence on Modern Greek poets, particularly Kostis Palamas and Gryparis.
The name of the mountain, (Mont Parnasse in french ), was also given to a quarter of Paris on the left banc of the Seine, where artists and poets used to gather. Montparnasse is nowadays one of the most renowned quarters of the city and in its cemetery many personalities of the arts and culture are buried.

The painter 
Carl Anton Joseph Rottmann was a German landscape painter and the most famous member of the Rottmann family of painters. Rottmann belonged to the circle of artists around the Ludwig I of Bavaria, who commissioned large landscape paintings exclusively from him. He is best known for mythical and heroising landscapes. The landscape painter Karl Lindemann-Frommel belonged to his school. Rottmann  received his first drawing lessons from his father, Friedrich Rottmann, who taught drawing at the university in Heidelberg. He formed himself chiefly through the study of nature and of great masterworks. In his first artistic period, he painted atmospheric phenomena. After gaining prominence with Heidelberg at Sunset (a water color), and Castle Eltz, he settled in Munich in 1822 and devoted himself to Bavarian scenery. Here his second period began, and in 1824 he married Friedericke, the daughter of his uncle, Friedrich Ludwig von Sckell, who served as an attendant at court. Through this connection, he made the acquaintance of King Ludwig I of Bavaria, who in 1826/27 sponsored his travels in Italy in order to widen his repertoire, which up to that point consisted solely of domestic, German, landscapes. In Italy, Rottmann made sketches for the 28 Italian landscapes in fresco which he was commissioned to paint in the arcades of the Hofgarten at Munich. The cycle, completed in 1833, gave visual expression to Ludwig’s alliance with Italy, and raised the genre of landscape painting to the height of history painting, the preferred mode of the King’s other great commissions for monumental painting. The frescos unfortunately deteriorated under climatic influences. The cartoons for them are in the Darmstadt Gallery.
In 1834 Rottmann traveled to Greece to prepare for a commission from Ludwig for a second cycle; one might mark here the beginning of his third period. At first also intended for the Hofgarten arcade, the 23 great landscapes were eventually installed in the newly built Neue Pinakothek where they were given their own hall.

EL MISTI PAINTED BY GEORGIA O'KEEFFE

GEORGIA O' KEEFFE (1887–1986)
El Misti or Guagua Putina (5,822m -19,101ft)

Peru

The mountain 

El Misti (5,822m -19,101ft) also known as Guagua Putina, is a stratovolcano located in southern Peru near the city of Arequipa. With its seasonally snow-capped, symmetrical cone, Misti lies between mount Chachani (6,075m - 19,931ft) and Pichu Pichu volcano (5,669 m -18,599 ft).

El Misti  is located at 3,415m above the sea level on the Altiplano and the elevation of the cone is approximatively 2,400m  above the Altiplano base. El Misti has three concentric craters. In the inner crater fumarole activity can often be seen. The symmetric conical shape of El Misti is typical of a stratovolcano, a type of volcano characterized by alternating layers of lava and debris from explosive eruptions, such as ash and pyroclastic flows. Stratovolcanoes are usually located on the continental crust above a subducting tectonic plate. The magma feeding the stratovolcanoes of the Andes Mountains, including El Misti, is associated with ongoing subduction of the Nazca Plate beneath the South American Plate. Its most recent relatively minor eruption was in 1985, 198 years after its previous documented eruption. Near the inner crater six Inca mummies and rare Inca artifacts were found in 1998 during a month-long excavation directed by archaeologists Johan Reinhard and Jose Antonio Chavez. These findings are currently stored at the Museo de Santuarios Andinos in Arequipa. The city center of Arequipa, Peru, lies only 17 kilometers (11 miles) away from the summit of El Misti; the gray urban area is bordered by green agricultural fields. With almost 1 million residents in 2009, it is the second largest city in Peru in terms of population. Much of the building stone for Arequipa, known locally as sillar, is quarried from nearby pyroclastic flow deposits that are white. Arequipa is known as the “White City” because of the prevalence of this building material. The Chili River extends northeastwards from the city center and flows through a canyon between El Misti volcano and Nevado Chachani to the north. Nevado Chachani is a volcanic complex that may have erupted during the Holocene Epoch (from about 10,000 years ago to the present), but no historical eruptions have been observed there.

The painter 

Georgia O’Keeffe is one of the most significant and intriguing artists of the twentieth century, known internationally for her boldly innovative art. Her distinct flowers, dramatic cityscapes, glowing landscapes, and images of bones against the stark desert sky are iconic and original contributions to American Modernism.

Born on November 15, 1887, the second of seven children, Georgia Totto O’Keeffe grew up on a farm near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. She studied at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1905-1906 and the Art Students League in New York in 1907-1908. Under the direction of William Merritt Chase, F. Luis Mora, and Kenyon Cox she learned the techniques of traditional realist painting. The direction of her artistic practice shifted dramatically in 1912 when she studied the revolutionary ideas of Arthur Wesley Dow. Dow’s emphasis on composition and design offered O’Keeffe an alternative to realism. She experimented for two years, while she taught art in South Carolina and west Texas. Seeking to find a personal visual language through which she could express her feelings and ideas, she began a series of abstract charcoal drawings in 1915 that represented a radical break with tradition and made O’Keeffe one of the very first American artists to practice pure abstraction.

O’Keeffe mailed some of these highly abstract drawings to a friend in New York City, who showed them to Alfred Stieglitz. An art dealer and internationally known photographer, he was the first to exhibit her work in 1916. He would eventually become O’Keeffe’s husband.

In the summer of 1929, O’Keeffe made the first of many trips to northern New Mexico. The stark landscape, distinct indigenous art, and unique regional style of adobe architecture inspired a new direction in O’Keeffe’s artwork. For the next two decades she spent part of most years living and working in New Mexico . She made the state her permanent home in 1949, three years after Stieglitz’s death. O’Keeffe’s New Mexico paintings coincided with a growing interest in regional scenes by American Modernists seeking a distinctive view of America. Her simplified and refined representations of this region express a deep personal response to the high desert terrain.

In the 1950s, O’Keeffe began to travel internationally. She created paintings that evoked a sense of the spectacular places she visited, including the mountain peaks of Peru and Japan’s Mount Fuji. At the age of seventy-three she embarked on a new series focused on the clouds in the sky and the rivers below.

Suffering from macular degeneration and discouraged by her failing eyesight, O’Keeffe painted her last unassisted oil painting in 1972. But O’Keeffe’s will to create did not diminish with her eyesight. In 1977, at age ninety, she observed, “I can see what I want to paint. The thing that makes you want to create is still there.”

Late in life, and almost blind, she enlisted the help of several assistants to enable her to again create art.  In these works she returned to favorite visual motifs from her memory and vivid imagination.

Georgia O’Keeffe died in Santa Fe, on March 6, 1986, at the age of 98.

-  Georgia O'Keeffe Museum 

GUNUNG BROMO PAINTED BY BASOEKI ABDULLAH

BASOEKI ABDULLAH ( 1915-1993)

Gunung Bromo (2,329m - 7,641ft)

Indonesia (Java Timur) 

  In Permandangan Gunung Bromo, 1949, oil on canvas, Basoeki Abdullah Museum 

The mountain 

Gunung Bromo (2,329m - 7,641ft) or Gunung Brama, an active volcano,in East Java, Indonesia,  is not the highest peak of the Tengger massif, but the best known. The massif area is one of the most visited tourist attractions in East Java, Indonesia. The volcano belongs to the Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park. The name of Bromo derived from Javanese pronunciation of Brahma, the Hindu creator god. Gunung Bromo sits in the middle of a plain called the "Sea of Sand"  a protected nature reserve since 1919. The best way to visit Gunung Bromo is from the nearby mountain village of Cemoro Lawang, from where it is possible to walk during 45 mn to the volcano. It is also possible to take an organised jeep tour, which includes a stop at the viewpoint on Gunung Penanjakan (2,770 m - 9,088 ft).
On the fourteenth day of the Hindu festival of Yadnya Kasada, the Tenggerese people of Probolinggo, East Java, travel up the mountain in order to make offerings of fruit, rice, vegetables, flowers and sacrifices to the mountain gods by throwing it into the caldera of the volcano. The origin of the ritual lies in the 15th century legend when princess  Roro Anteng started the principality of Tengger with her husband, Joko Seger. The couple were childless and therefore beseeched the assistance of the mountain gods. The gods granted them 24 children but stipulated that the 25th child, named Kesuma, must be thrown into the volcano as a human sacrifice. The gods' request was implemented. The tradition of throwing sacrifices into the volcano to appease these ancient deities continues today and is called the Yadnya Kasada ceremony. Though fraught with danger, some locals risk climbing down into the crater in an attempt to recollect the sacrificed goods that they believe could bring them good luck.
Depending on the degree of volcanic activity, the Indonesian Centre for Volcanology and Disaster Hazard Mitigation sometimes issues warnings against visiting Mount Bromo.
 Mount Bromo recently erupted in 2004, 2010, 2011 and 2015.

The painter 

Basoeki  (or Basuki) Abdullah is one of a the modern master painters of Indonesia, known as a realist and naturalist painter. He has been appointed as the official painter of Merdeka Palace in Jakarta and works adorn palaces and presidential countries Indonesia, in addition to have been collectibles from around the world. His father, Abdullah Suriosubroto, was a famous painter and dancer, while his grandfather,  Doctor Wahidin Sudirohusodo, was a prominent Indonesian National Awakening Movement in the early 1900's. Since the age of 4 years, Basoeki Abdullah began to paint  famous personalities such as Mahatma Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore and even Jesus Christ and Krishnamurti. His acquired a formal education in the Basoeki Abdullah Catholic and Catholic Mulo in Solo. In 1933,  BasoekiAbdullah obtained a scholarship to study at the Academic Arts in The Hague, Netherlands, and completed his studies within 3 years with awarded Certificate of Royal International of Art (RIA). On 6 September 1948,  during the revolutionary period,  Basoeki Abdullah is housed in Amsterdam (Netherlands) during the coronation of Queen Juliana which held a contest to paint, Basoeki Abdullah defeated 87 European painters and managed to come out as winners.
Since then, the world began to recognize BasoekiAbdullah, during his frequent visits around Europe (Italy and France) and was well known by many resident artists with a worldwide reputation.
BasoekiAbdullah is famous as a portrait painter, especially painting  the royal family and heads of state that tends to beautify or embellish  persons. Aside from being an accomplished portrait painter, he too painted landscapes, mountains, fauna, flora, the themes of struggle, construction and so on.
Basoeki Abdullah held many solo exhibitions both domestically and abroad, among others, his work was exhibited in Bangkok (Thailand), Malaysia, Japan, the Netherlands, England, Portugal... Approximately 22 countries have Basoeki Abdullah paintings in their official collections. Most of his life was spent abroad including several years living in Thailand.

RONDSLOTTET PAINTED BY NIKOLAI ASTRUP

NIKOLAI ASTRUP  (1880-1928)

Rondslotett (2,178m - 7,146ft) 

Norway

In Vinternatt  Rondslottet, oil on canvas

The mountain 

Rondslottet (2,178m - 7,146ft)  is the highest mountain in the Rondane mountain range and is also the highest mountain in the county Hedmark. The landscapes of Rondane are well known to have inspired the work Peer Gynt (1867), a play by Henrik Ibsen, and a opera by Edvard Grieg which is partly set in Rondane. Rondane is the finite plural of the word rond. Several mountains in the area have the ending-ronden (Digerronden, Høgronden, Midtronden, Storronden and Vinjeronden), and this is the finite singular of the same word. The word rond was probably originally the name of the long and narrow lake Rondvatnet ('Rond water/lake') - and the mountains around were then named after this lake. For the meaning see under Randsfjorden.

Rondane National Park (Norwegian: Rondane nasjonalpark) is the oldest national park in Norway, established on 21 December 1962.  The park contains ten peaks above 2,000 metres (6,560 ft), with the highest being Rondeslottet at an altitude (see above). The park is an important habitat for herds of wild reindeer. The park was extended in 2003, and now covers an area of 963 km2 (372 sq mi) in the counties Oppland and Hedmark. Rondane lies just to the east of Gudbrandsdal and two other mountain areas, Dovre and Jotunheimen are nearby.

Visitors to Rondane are free to hike and camp in all areas of the park, except in the immediate vicinity of cabins. Apart from being closed for motor traffic, not many special regulations apply. Fishing and hunting is available to licensees. The Norwegian Mountain Touring Association (DNT) is an association that owns and manages a network of mountain cabins in the service of hikers. In Rondane, there is a central cabin by the southern end of the lake Rondvatnet, Rondvassbu. There is also Dørålseter and Bjørnhollia at the northern and eastern rims of the park. All three cabins are manned, and provide food and limited accommodation. There are also un-manned cabins in the Park, like Eldåbu where a key is needed. The service cabins are also open during the winter season, although they are sometimes only self-serviced off season. Ski trails are marked and sometimes prepared, either by DNT or some of the hotels and skiing resorts close to the park.

The painter 
Nikolai Astrup was a Norwegian painter born in Bremanger in Nordfjord, but grew up in Ålhus in Jølster where his father worked as a priest.  Nikolai studied  drawing and painting subjects in Oslo where he was a student at Harriet Backer's popular school of painting.
He later lived for a while in Paris and in Germany before returning to Jølster. He got married there and had 8 children. The economy was very tight and he struggled with poor health. Astrup died of pneumonia in 1928 at the age of 47.
Astrup preferred clear, strong colors and usually made landscape art depicting his surroundings in Jølster. Having spent the majority of his life in Jølster, the Nordic landscape proved a strong influence and through his paintings he sought 'a national "visual language" that evoked the traditions and folklore of his homeland'. His paintings describe an intimate interaction between nature and the built environment, characterized by bold lines and distinctive rich color. Astrup is regarded as a neo-romantic painter, but he also worked with woodcuts. He is looked upon as one of the greatest Norwegian artists from the early 1900s ; several of his paintings have been sold at auctions for approximately $500,000 USD. Astrup's works have been likened to those of his contemporary Edvard Munch, though Astrup's style has been described as being 'so much brighter – not just in colour, but also in mood'.
Although well known in Norway, Astrup is little-known in the rest of the world. The first exhibition of his work outside of Norway is taking place at Dulwich Picture Gallery, London from 5 February - 15 May 2016. The exhibition will display over 90 oil paintings and prints, including works from private collections never exhibited before.

2017 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

SEVEN WEEKS DEFILE PEAK BY G. J. BEUKES

GERHARD .J. BEUKES (1885 -1945)

Seven Weeks Defile Peak (2,325 m -7,628 ft) 

South Africa (Western Cape) 

In Seweweekspoort, oil on cardboard, 1936, Private collection USA 

The Mountain 

Seven Weeks Defile Peak   (2,325 m -7,628 ft) in Afrikaans Seweweekspoortpiek, is a peak in the Western Cape, South Africa. It is the highest mountain in the Cape Fold Belt and the highest point in the Western Cape province. Along with its western neighbour, Du Toits Peak, it qualifies as an Ultra and these are the only two in the country. It is located in the Klein Swartberg range, close to the Seweweekspoort  mountain pass.

The Swartberg mountains (black mountain in Afrikaans, a mountain range in the Western Cape province of South Africa, is composed of two main mountain chains running roughly east-west along the northern edge of the semi-arid Little Karoo. To the north of the range lies the other large semi-arid area in South Africa, the Great Karoo. Most of the Swartberg Mountains are above 2000 m high, making them the tallest mountains in the Western Cape. It is also one of the longest, spanning some 230 km from south of Laingsburg in the west to between Willowmore and Uniondale in the east. Geologically, these mountains are part of the Cape Fold Belt.

Much of the Swartberg is part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The artist

Gerhard J. (Gabriel Jacobus) Beukes was born in a Afrikanner family of Western Cape aerea. He xas active as painter and early photographer in South Africa until the 1940s'. He is known for his landscape and mountains paintings of the Western Cape area and his paintings on cardboard of the Swartberg mountains.  No other information on this painter.  

HIRA MOUNTAINS / 比良山地 BY UTAGAWA HIROSHIGE / 歌川 広重

 UTAGAWA HIROSHIGE / 歌川 広重 (1797-1858)

Hira Mountains or Hira Sanch / 比良山地  (1,214 m - 3,984 ft)

Japan 

1. In A mountain in the snow,  8 Views of Omi, #1, Evening Snow on Mount Hira, 1834, print  

2. In  Evening Snow on Mount Hira, 2010, new colored print 

The paintings
On most of the representations of the Hira Mountains, whatever the artist who painted or drawn them (Hiroshige here or many others up to the present time), we can see herbs leaning from right to left as under effect of the wind. It is the effect of the strong local wind Hira-oroshi which often blows from Hira Mountains to Lake Biwa especially in the late days of March. This wind sometimes sinks boats on the lake and stops trains of the line passing along the foot of the mountains. In every 26 March, Tendai priests hold a memorial service for casualties of shipwreck accidents. This wind is almost an integral part of the representation of the mountain.

The mountains 
The three main peaks of the Hira Mountains are Mount Bunagatake (1,214 m- 3,984 ft) ; Hōraisan, (1,174 m- 3,852 ft),and Mount Uchimi (1,103 m - 3,619 ft).
The Hira Mountains (比良山地 Hira-sanchi) are a mountain range to the west of Lake Biwa on the border of Shiga Prefecture and Kyoto Prefecture, Japan. The range runs 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) north to south. It is narrowest in the southern part of the range, running 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) east to west, and broadest at the northern part of the range, running 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) km east to west. The eastern side of the Hira Mountains looks steeply over Lake Biwa, while the western side of the range forms a gentler valley in Kyoto.

The artist

Utagawa Hiroshige (歌川 広重), also know as Andō Hiroshige (安藤 広重), was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist, considered the last great master of that tradition. Hiroshige is best known for his landscapes, such as the series The Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō (see above) and The Sixty-nine Stations of the Kiso Kaidō; and for his depictions of birds and flowers. The subjects of his work were atypical of the ukiyo-e genre, whose typical focus was on beautiful women, popular actors, and other scenes of the urban pleasure districts of Japan's Edo period (1603–1868). The popular Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji series by Hokusai was a strong influence on Hiroshige's choice of subject, though Hiroshige's approach was more poetic and ambient than Hokusai's bolder, more formal prints.
Hiroshige produced over 8,000 works
He dominated landscape printmaking with his unique brand of intimate, almost small-scale works compared against the older traditions of landscape painting descended from Chinese landscape painters such as Sesshu. The travel prints generally depict travelers along famous routes experiencing the special attractions of various stops along the way. They travel in the rain, in snow, and during all of the seasons. In 1856, working with the publisher Uoya Eikichi, he created a series of luxury edition prints, made with the finest printing techniques including true gradation of color, the addition of mica to lend a unique iridescent effect, embossing, fabric printing, blind printing, and the use of glue printing (wherein ink is mixed with glue for a glittery effect).
For scholars and collectors, Hiroshige's death marked the beginning of a rapid decline in the ukiyo-e genre, especially in the face of the westernization that followed the Meiji Restoration of 1868. Hiroshige's work came to have a marked influence on Western painting towards the close of the 19th century as a part of the trend in Japonism. Western artists closely studied Hiroshige's compositions, and some, such as Vincent van Gogh or Claude Monet, painted copies of Hiroshige's prints.

MOUNT ELBRUS PAINTED BY ILYA NIKOLAEVITCH ZANKOVSKY

ILYA NIKOLAEVITCH ZANKOVSKY (1832-1919)

Mount Elbrus (5,642 m - 18,510 ft)

Russia 

1. In Mount Elbrus, Caucasus, oil on canvas,  Russian State Museum

2.  In Mountain in Caucasus,  Elbrus, spring, 1874, oil on canvas, Odessa Fine Arts Museum,

3. In  Mountain scene on Mount Elbrus, oil on canvas, 1875, Omsk Regional Museum of Fine Arts 

The paintings

Painting no. 1 is one of the rare ones depicting the Elbrus with a blue sky, as the atmospheric conditions around this majestic sacred mountain are usually tormented. The painter will no doubt have seized this moment by a sweet summer afternoon.

The light in paintings n°2 and n°3 is quite similar, a kind of misty, yellowish halo that coats the whole mass and seems to dissipate only around the glacier, which appears in a surreal whiteness. On the other hand, the staging of the mountain itself is totally different: in the n ° 2, the Mount Elbrus is seen at the plumb of a torrent which releases, in spring, of furious springtime cascades; in no. 3, Mount Elbrus is seen from a pass through which passes a caravan of wrapped merchants who seem to stop in front of the painter.

The mountain
Mount Elbrus (Эльбру́с) also called  Karachay-Balkar (Минги таy) is the highest mountain in Europe, and the seven highest summit in the world.  The seven summit (which are obviously 8, with  2 in Europe !) are : Mount Everest (8,848m), Aconcagua (6,961m), Mt Denali or Mc Kinley (6,194m),  Kilimandjaro (5,895m), Mt Elbrus (5,642m), Vinson  Massif (4,892m), Mt Blanc (4,807m) and Mount Kosciuszko  (2,228m) in Australia.
Mount Elbrus should not be confused with the Alborz (also called Elburz) mountains in Iran, which also derive their name from the legendary mountain Harā Bərəzaitī in Persian mythology.
A dormant volcano, Elbrus forms part of the Caucasus Mountains in Southern Russia, near the border with Georgia. Elbrus has two summits, both of which are dormant volcanic domes. With its slightly taller west summit, the mountain stands at 5,642 metres (18,510 ft); the east summit is 5,621 metres (18,442 ft). The lower east summit was first ascended on 10 July 1829 by Khillar Khachirov, a Karachayguide for an Imperial Russian army scientific expedition led by General Emmanuel, and the higher in 1874 by an British expedition led by F. Crauford Grove and including Frederick Gardner, Horace Walker, and the Swiss guide Peter Knubel of St. Niklaus in the canton Valais.
While there are differing authorities on how the Caucasus are distributed between Europe and Asia, most relevant modern authorities define the continental boundary as the Caucasus watershed, placing Elbrus in Europe due to its position on the north side in Russia.
Mount Elbrus was formed more than 2.5 million years ago. The volcano is currently considered inactive. Elbrus was active in the Holocene, and according to the Global Volcanism Program, the last eruption took place about AD 50. Evidence of recent volcanism includes several lava flows on the mountain, which look fresh, and roughly 260 square kilometres (100 sq mi) of volcanic debris. The longest flow extends 24 kilometres (15 mi) down the northeast summit, indicative of a large eruption. There are other signs of activity on the volcano, including solfataric activity and hot springs. The western summit has a well-preserved volcanic crater about 250 metres (820 ft) in diameter.
The ancients knew the mountain as Strobilus, Latin for 'pine cone', a direct loan from the ancient Greek strobilos, meaning 'a twisted object' – a long established botanical term that describes the shape of the volcano's summit. Myth held that here Zeus had chained Prometheus, the Titan who had stolen fire from the gods and given it to ancient man – likely a reference to historic volcanic activity.
The Soviet Union encouraged ascents of Elbrus, and in 1956 it was climbed en masse by 400 mountaineers to mark the 400th anniversary of the incorporation of Kabardino-Balkaria, the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic where Elbrus was located.
From 1959 through 1976, a cable car system was built in stages that can take visitors as high as 3,800 metres (12,500 ft). There are a wide variety of routes up the mountain, but the normal route, which is free of crevasses, continues more or less straight up the slope from the end of the cable car system. Winter ascents are rare, and are usually undertaken only by very experienced climbers. Elbrus is notorious for its brutal winter weather, and summit attempts are few and far between. The climb is not technically difficult, but it is physically arduous because of the elevations and the frequent strong winds. The average annual death toll on Elbrus is 15–30, primarily due to "many unorganized and poorly equipped" attempts to summit the mountain. Since 1986, Mt. Elbrus has been incorporated into Prielbrusye National Park, one of the Protected areas of Russia.
In 1997 a team led by the Russian mountaineer Alexander Abramov took a Land Rover Defender to the summit of the East Peak, breaking into the Guinness Book of Records. The project took 45 days in total. They were able to drive the vehicle as high as the mountain huts at The Barrels (3,800 metres (12,500 ft)), but above this they used a pulley system to raise it most of the way. On the way down, a driver lost control of the vehicle and had to dive out.
The second was Kevin Cooney, and the third Patrick Healy.
Regular competitions began to take place since 2005 is a choice of two routes: the classic and extreme. In 2006, on the route of extreme glade Azau (2400 m) - the western summit of Elbrus (5642 m asl) Denis Urubko set a record by winning the tour time 3 hours 55 minutes 59 seconds.
The Pole Aleksandra Dzik won the female competition on this route, becoming both the first woman graduated from extreme gear.

The painter 
Ilya Zankovsky was a russian  painter and graphic artist  who studied as a noncredit student in the Imperial Academy of Arts (IAKh, 1862–1863) and who did not finish the course. Zankovsky lived in Tiflis, served in the Military topographic department of the Caucasus military region. He painted landscapes of the Caucasus (Mount Elbrus (above), Georgian military road, The Darial Gorge, From the main mountain range, Mount Ushba. Hunters halt). He worked a lot in watercolor. His works were shown at the exhibitions of the Caucasian Society for Encouragement of Fine Arts, the Society for mutual aid of Caucasian artists, the Society of Russian Watercolorists, and at the Autumn exhibitions in the halls of the IAKh. Zankovsky taught in the Drawing School under the Caucasian Society for Encouragement of Fine Arts in 1880s–1910s.
In 2009 an exhibition of Zankovsky’s works was held in Moscow. Works by Ilya Zankovsky are in many museum collections, including the State Russian Museum, Odessa Fine Arts Museum, Omsk Regional Museum of Fine Arts named after M. A. Vrubel, and Dagestan Museum of Local History.

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2017 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau